they raised cash knowing they might need that cash to pay much higher taxes, the taxes that a failed attempt to fix the cliff would produce. a huge amount of dough moved to the sidelines immediately. companies themselves accelerated dividend payouts, putting tens of billions of dollars into the hands of shareholders who had no idea what to do with the money other than sit on it. so we came into the new year and we were paralyzed. inventories lean, huge part of the country damaged by a storm, totally dysfunctional food fight animal house government, and we're brimming with cash everywhere, for the biggest rainy day of all, the day we jumped over the cliff. but then we don't do the cliff dive. and contra to stock seer bob dylan, the hard rain, it didn't fall. in fact, we didn't get that much. we didn't get dinged except for the rich, who are the most able to handle it. all right, yeah, i can make a big deal about payroll tax thing, that's no problem. nevertheless, it's a small fraction of what we really feared. stocks kept their favored status, including relatively low taxes on dividen